History Of Chess - About Chess History
➤After the conquest of Persia by the Arabs, they assimilated the chess game and spread it in the West, taking it to North Africa and Europe, and even the current Spain and Italy around the 10th century, from where it spread to the rest of the continent, reaching the region of Scandinavia and Iceland.
▷In the East, chess has spread from its Chinese version, Xiangqi, to Korea and Japan in the 10th century. In the 15th century, the game was widely spread in Europe and among the existing variants of the game, the European one was the one that stood out for the indicated speed and also for the inclusion of the queen and the bishop.
Popularity in Chess - Chess History
➤The popularity of international chess competitions has led to the creation of the title of chess world champion, won by Wilhelm Steinitz in 1886, and, in 1924, the International Chess Federation was founded in Paris, which organizes the first Chess Olympiad and the women's world championship, won by Vera Menchik.
▷At the end of the 1950s, with the popularization of computers, the first chess programs began to appear, which accompanied the evolution of information processing and introduced the game in the modern era with online competitions and facilitating the analysis of the games.
Who Invented Chess? - Chess History
➤The origin of chess is still a matter of debate among chess historians, however the most widespread theory is that it was created in India during the Gupta Empire around the 6th century. This theory is confirmed by early Persian literary records and by analysis of the etymology of the words used in the game and their co-evolution with chess.
▷The similarities between Chaturanga and Xiangqi, considered the Chinese version of chess, are explored indicating that these games may have influenced each other through contact between civilizations along the Silk Road, assimilating some aspects of their rules and forming hybrid versions, which could be traced back to ancient Greece and Alexander the Great's conquest of Asia Minor in the third century BC.
Where Chess Originated? - Chess History
➤The first tells the legend of the Brahmin Sessa Ibn Daher, who created the game at the request of an Indian rajah and, as a reward, asked him for a grain of wheat for the first square of the board, progressively doubling the amount for each new square. The other story tells that the game was invented at the request of the mother of King Gav to prove that he had not caused the death of his brother Talhend during a battle, reconstituted on the board.
▷The poem Mâdayân chatrang, or simply Chatrang nâmag, is the earliest literary evidence describing chess pieces and the arrival of chaturanga in Persia, although the dating of the text is controversial - historians estimate it dates between the 7th and 9th centuries. By the 7th century another poem, Xusraw Kawadan ud redag, written in the Pahlavi language, mentions chaturanga, Ashtāpada and nard, the predecessor of backgammon.
➤The so-called Afrasiab pieces are seven in number, with an average size of 3 cm, and were dated to the 7th century. The earliest adaptations to chaturanga were the translation of the game, which came to be called Shatranj, and of the pieces that retained the Indian meaning of representing in the game the four components of the army at the time: chariots, cavalry, mounted elephants and soldiers assembled beyond the sovereign and his advisor.
➤The exact rules of the game that was played at the Byzantine court are not known, and with the fall of the empire in 1453, the current version of the game was replaced by the Turkish version that would later be replaced by the European version.
🇨🇳In China, chaturanga was possibly introduced by the silk road between the Kashmir region and the Chinese empire around the 8th century. However, the Chinese empire was closed to foreign contact, hindering the penetration of the game, which was only changed after World War II and the tightening of foreign relations with the Soviet Union.
➤Shatranj was introduced in Europe by the Arabs around the 10th century, through the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, where it quickly became popular, reaching the entire European continent by the end of the 11th century. Religious restrictions on the practice of chess were maintained, although they are still disobeyed by both the European court and the clergy.
⭐The rules described were still the same as those of the Shatranj; however, this poem makes the first mention of the Queen, although still with the same moves of the fers and different rules for the promotion of the pawn, which prevented the presence of two ladies on the board, following the order to maintain the regulation of royal monogamy.
Which is the first chess book in its history?
📚The first book that is preserved where the new rules appear is that of Luis Ramirez de Lucena in Repetición de amores y arte de ajedrez, which was followed by others such as Damiano in Questo Libro e da Imparare Giocare a Scachi and Ruy Lopez de Segura in Libro de la invención liberal y arte del juego del axedrez, the latter being the strongest player of the time and the first to formalize the rules of castling in a single move and the capture at the pass. Other names emerged such as Paolo Boi, Polerio and Greco, who were patrons in different courts, producing a great variety of manuscripts with new theories in openings.
